IS 






IFISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES 



HEARING 



BEFORE A 



JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE OF COMMERCE 
AND FISHERIES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

SIXTY-FIFTH CONGKESS 

SECOND SESSION 



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1918 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

191S 



COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE. 



DUNCAN D. FLETCHER, of Florida, Chairman. 



GEORGE E. CHAMBERLAIN, of Oregon. 
JOSEPH E. RANSDELL, of Louisiana. 
MORRIS SHEPPARD, of Texas. 
JAMES K.' VARDAMAN, of Mississippi. 
JOHN K. SHIELDS, of Tennessee. 
THOMAS S. MARTIN, of Virginia. 
JOHN H. BANKHEAD, of Alabama. 
FURNIFOLD McL. SIMMONS, of North 

Carolina. 
JAMES A. REED, of Missouri. 
WILLIAM F. KIRBY, of Arkansas. 



KNUTE NELSON, of Minnesota. 
WILLIAM ALDEN SMITH, of Michigan. 
WELSEY L. JONES, of Washington. 
LAWRENCE Y. SHERMAN, of Illinois. 
WARREN G. HARDING, of Ohio. 
BERT M. FERNALD, of Maine. 
WILLIAM M. CALDER, of New York. 
HIRAM W. JOHNSON, of California. 
IRVINE L. LENROOT, of Wisconsin. 



COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES. 
JOHN F. NUGENT, of Idaho, Chairman. 



DUNCAN U. FLETCHER, of Florida. 
THOMAS S. MARTIN, of Virginia. 
JOSIAII 0. WOLCOTT, of Delaware. 
WALTER GUION, of Louisiana. 



WESLEY L. JONES, of Washington. 
CHARLES CURTIS, of Kansas. 
BERT M. FERNALD, of Maine. 
DAVID BAIRD, of New Jersey. 



JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE. 



Mr. FLETCHER, of Commerce. 
2 



Mr. NUGENT, of Fisheries. 



DEC 6 lit® 






~6 



FISH LNDUSTBY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1918. 

United States Senate, 
Subcommittees of the Committee on 
Commerce and Committee on Fisheries, 

Washington, D. C. 
~ The subcommittees of the Committee on Commerce and Committee 
on Fisheries met at 10 o'clock a. m. in the committee room of the 
Committee on Commerce, Capitol, in joint session, pursuant to call, 
Senator Duncan U. Fletcher presiding. 

Present: Senators Fletcher (chairman) and Nugent. 
Present also : Senator Robert L. Owen and Senator James D. Phe- 
lan; Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, Chief Bureau of Chemistry; Dr. E. D. 
Clark, assistant to Chief Bureau of Chemistry; Dr. F. W. Weber, 
chemist in charge of Animal Physiological Laboratory, Bureau of 
Chemistry; and Dr. M. E. Pennington, Chief Food Research Lab- 
oratory, Bureau of Chemistry, of the Department of Agriculture; 
Dr. E. E. Coker, assistant in charge of Division of Scientific Inquiry, 
Bureau of Fisheries, and Mr. L. Radcliffe, assistant in charge of 
Division of Statistics and Methods, Bureau of Fisheries, of the 
Department of Commerce. 

The Chairman. Dr. Alsberg, will you kindly make a general state- 
ment for the purpose of the record ? 

STATEMENT OF DR. CARL L. ALSBERG, CHIEF OF BUREAU OF 
CHEMISTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

Dr. Alsberg. The Bureau of Chemistry has had a small appropria- 
tion of some $14,000 or $15,000 for four or five years for the pro- 
motion of the utilization of fishes for food and other uses. When 
the present war emergency arose it seemed wise to spend a part of 
that appropriation in stimulating the production of fish in various 
seaboard States, among others in California. For that purpose Dr. 
E. D. Clark, who had been under Dr. Pennington in charge of the 
fish-handling work which was done in the Southeast and Gulf waters, 
was sent to California in order to stimulate the production of fish for 
food purposes there. The work which he was instructed to under- 
take was along several lines. In the first place, he was instructed to 
investigate the best methods of canning and packing the various fish 
now being canned and packed in California — in the main sardines and 
various varieties of tuna — and in addition to endeavor to induce the 
California packers to can other varieties not now used to any appre- 
ciable extent for food, such as barracuda and anchovy and a consid- 
erable number of other varieties that are now but little used. 

3 



4 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES, 

In addition he was instructed to look into the question of the ship- 
ping of fresh fish inland, which he had already studied with Dr. 
Pennington. 

A further direction in which he was instructed to work was to 
promote the preservation of fish by other methods than canning, such 
as by salting, smoking, kippering, and drying, which have some 
advantages over canning in that they do not require so extensive 
equipment, nor use tin plate, but have a disadvantage in that the 
product is not so completely imperishable as are canned foods. 

These are the three directions along which he was instructed to 
operate: To improve methods of canning and to endeavor to stimu- 
late the use of varieties not now utilized; to assist in whatever way 
possible in the transportation to market of fresh fish, especially 
varieties not now being utilized. I might mention shad, the roe of 
which is shipped and the fish itself is not eaten very much in the 
bay cities in the vicinity of San Francisco. My statement on that 
is right, is it not, Dr. Clark? 

Dr. Clark. Yes. 

Dr. Alsberg. And also to stimulate and investigate the salting and 
smoking and similar methods of curing and preserving fish. As I 
said, those are the three lines of work that he was supposed to un- 
dertake. Some of our bulletins, reports, and statements to the trade 
are submitted for the Senators' inspection. 

Senator Fletcher. Has the Bureau of Fisheries cooperated in that 
work, or has your investigation been independent of that? 

Dr. Alsberg. No, Senator; there has been nothing done by the 
Bureau of Chemistry which has not been done with the cooperation 
and knowledge and approval of the Bureau of Fisheries. No work 
has been undertaken at any time by the Bureau of Chemistry without 
getting the approval of the Bureau of Fisheries before it was begun. 

Are you interested in learning how the Bureau of Chemistry got 
into this work at all ? 

Senator Owen. I would like to know it. 

Dr. Alsberg. Well, it is largely my fault, personally. A good many 
years ago, before I had any connection whatever with the Federal 
Government, except that of any other citizen, I was an instructor in 
chemistry in the medical faculty of Harvard, and in the summer the 
Bureau of Fisheries used to employ me for three months during my 
vacation to go down to Woods Hole, where they have a station, to 
make analyses of food fish. That was in the days when Mr. Oscar 
Straus was Secretary of Commerce and Mr. Bowers was Commis- 
sioner of Fisheries. At that time I suggested to Mr. Straus and Mr. 
Bowers, whom I happened to know personally very well, that in my 
judgment it would be a very wise thing for the Bureau of Fisheries to 
undertake a rather extensive piece of work to investigate and pro- 
mote the industrial side, as you might call it, of the industries which 
are based on sea products, such as the proper methods of cold storing 
fish and handling fish, the manufacture of glue, the production of oil 
from fish and its utilization, the possibility of utilizing fish oil for 
food purposes, the manufacture of potash from kelp — all of that sort 
of thing — and the production of leather from various sharks and por- 
poises, and the use of fish which are not now being used. Both Sec- 
retary Straus and Commissioner Bowers approved of the general idea 
and said that they would take it up with Congress. Whether that 



TISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 5 

was done or not I do not know. At any rate, no appropriation was 
made and the work was not started. 

Then, when I became, about eight or nine years later. Chief of the 
Bureau of Chemistry under Secretary Wilson, I went to Secretary 
Wilson and asked for his approval — the Bureau of Fisheries not 
ha vino- procured an appropriation — for the Bureau of Chemistry to 
ask Congress for money to make a beginning in this work. Secre- 
tary Wilson signed a memorandum to inc. which I prepared for him, 
that he approved of the plan. I asked him to do that, because lie was 
about to retire, there being a change in administration; and when the 
new administration came in I put this question to Mr. Houston. 
showed him Mr. Wilson's approval, and received Mr. Houston's con- 
sent to ask for a small appropriation from Congress, some S15.000. 
We asked actually for $25,000, but we got $15,000. We have had 
that now for four years, is it not. Dr. Pennington? 

Dr. Pennington. Just about four year-. 

Dr. Alsberg. That appropriation was very small to carry on the 
many kinds of work, and it seemed wiser to put almost all our 
eggs into one basket in the beginning than to fritter a small appro- 
priation away in many lines of work. 

The particular part of the fish industry which seemed to require 
help was the question of properly marketing fish. The waste which 
occurs in sending fresh fish from the coast inland is terrific. They 
are handled badly: nobody has ever made a study of the right way 
to ship them, how to freeze them, how to chill them, and all that sort 
of thing. It happened we had made just that kind of study for 
poultry and eggs, which, like fish, are very perishable. So the first 
piece of work we undertook Ava^ the improving of the methods of 
transporting fresh fish, in order that the consumer should get fresh 
fish and at a reasonable price, and so that we would overcome some 
of the prejudice against fish as they exist. 

When I say "fresh fish." 1 am including the frozen fish, and using 
that term as opposed to canned or salted or smoked or kippered fish. 
because a properly frozen fish is a perfectly satisfactory article, a 
perfectly satisfactory food. The trouble with frozen fish has not 
been, and the prejudice against them is no* due. to the fact that 
freezing is an unsatisfactory way of preserving them, but it F due 
to the fact that a good deal of freezing has been done by people who 
do not understand bow to do it. because the way to do it is imme- 
diately to chill the fish away below the freezing point and to dip him 
in fresh water. The fish, being much colder than the water, instantly 
covers itself with a hermetic seal of ice, and then it is put in storage 
and it is sealed as perfect! . as long as il is kept cold enough to keep 
ice on it. as though it were canned by some housewife in a Mason 
jar with a rubber seal. If the fish is not consumed within two or 
three months, then the seal has to be renewed and the fish has to be 
redipped, because ice evaporates without melting, which is not gen- 
erally realized. It is what the physicists call subliming. That i< the 
main point about freezing fish. But there are a lot of trick's about 
how to handle them and keep them fit from the time they are caught 
to the time they are frozen: and that is the trouble. 

So the bulk of the money which we had was spent on improving 
the quality of the fish and teaching people around the country who 
were handling fish how to get them in right shape for the market. 



6 FISH INDUSTRY IX THE UNITED STATES. 

Bulletins have been issued giving directions for the proper methods 
of freezing fish, handling shrimp in the South, and also bulletins 
on the food value of fish. 

A smaller sum of money was spent on helping to improve the 
pack of sardines on the Maine coast. 

Among the localities in which we have endeavored particularly to 
promote this handling of fresh fish has been the Carolinas and 
Florida. On the Gulf coast of Florida, or at any rate in Florida, 
there are many varieties of fish which never come into the market, 
because nobody has made a serious effort to market them ; and in the 
Carolinas the transportation conditions — concerning which Dr. Pen- 
nington, if you wish details, can give you more information than I 
can — are such that a large percentage of the fish before they reach 
the northern markets have to be thrown away — go to the dump — be- 
cause the transportation conditions are not right. That also is the 
condition in Florida. It was necessary to organize the transporta- 
tion in cooporation with the railroads. It was necessary to get the 
railroads to put on proper refrigeration service, and it was necessary 
to study what that service must be — how the fish should be iced. 

When the food-production bill came, I asked the Secretary of Agri- 
culture to allot to us some money with which we could expand and 
make more effective the work which we were then doing, and it is 
with some of that money that Dr. Clark was sent out to California. 
It is with that money that Dr. Pennington undertook a service which 
may be interesting, if you care to listen about it, to popularize and 
put upon the market fish from the west coast of Florida in such 
cities as Indianapolis, Louisville, and Nashville. 

Before that work was undertaken it was taken up with the Bureau 
of Fisheries. In Florida the Bureau of Fisheries had Mr. Douthart 
cooperating with Dr. Pennington and Mr. Hill, of the Bureau of 
Chemistry, and in California Dr. Clark was continuously cooperat- 
ing with such of the Bureau of Fisheries people as happened to visit 
that district. 

I may add that before we got the original small appropriation, 
four years ago, I went to Dr. Smith, who had just recently been made 
Commissioner of Fisheries, and asked him whether it was agreeable 
to him for us to go into this work. He said that inasmuch as they 
had not succeeded in developing the work, that it ought to be done 
by somebody, and if we could get the appropriation to do it he would 
not object; and we have had a sort of direct understanding between 
us that whenever the Bureau of Fisheries was in a position to carry 
on this work on a more extensive scale or to better advantage than 
we could carry it on, we would readjust it, and the Bureau of Chem- 
istry would, if it seemed wise, gradually draw out of it. 

Senator Owen. So Dr. Clark then made this particular inquiry on 
the California coast, and he has now the samples of those different 
packs and fish products that are used there ? 

Dr. Alsberg. Might I say, Senator, that we have put up a good 
many experimental packs of new products ourselves? But we did 
not have many of them available in the Bureau of Chemistry, and 
there was not time to telegraph to California and get them by ex- 
press. So Dr. Clark 

Senator Owen. That could be added and put in with this matter 
by an addenda. 



PISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 7 

Dr. Alsberg. Oh, Dr. Clark is in position to discuss it, but he is 
not in a position to show it ; that is all. 

Senator Fletcher. We will now, if you please, hear Dr. Clark. 

STATEMENT OF DR. E. D. CLARK, ASSISTANT TO CHIEF -OF BUREAU 
OF CHEMISTRY, DEPARTMENT OF ARICULTTJRE. 

Dr. Clark. My chief, Dr. Alsberg, has spoken 1113^ speech for me, 
because he has outlined in a concise way everything we did. 

One of the main troubles we found when we went to California 
over a j 7 ear ago — and I may say that we went there at the request of 
Mr. Ralph P. Merritt, the able food administrator of California — 
that some reform was necessary in the methods of packing fish in 
southern California. I do not need to describe that in detail, because 
Dr. Alsberg has outlined the situation in Maine, and it existed in 
California to some extent. The packers realized this and had a large 
mass meeting at the Athletic Club in Los Angeles. Mr. Merritt 
addressed them, and after the meeting was over they asked us what 
we thought should be done. We told them that the quality of the 
pack as well as sanitary conditions in the canneries would have to 
be improved, and they immediately asked me to draw up a series of 
rules and regulations for the standardization and improvement of 
the quality of the pack. We did that, and at another meeting a little 
later 

Senator Owen. Will you put those rules and regulations into the 
record ? 

Dr. Clark. I have them right here. I can give them to the stenog- 
rapher later. 

(The rules and regulations referred to were subsequently furnished 
by Dr. Clark, and are here printed in full, as follows :) 

Proposed rules far flic inspection and standardization of sardine canneries. 

1 ETCHING. 

1. Keep fish in boxes not over 8 inches deep or in wells with water. 

2. The custom of walking on fish should be forbidden. 

3. Keep fish always wel and away from direct sunlight. 

4. Fish boxes and other storage places to he washed after every load. 

RECEIVING. 

1. All belly-blown and soft fish should he refused at (he dock. 

2. Avoid all handling or rough treatment that may result in bruising the fish. 

3. Srm-e in containers not more than 8 inches deep. 

4. All boxes, tools, conveyers coming in contad with the fish should be 
washed daily. 

CLEANING. 

1. Removal of entrails to be complete in all cases. 

2. Pish to be thoroughly washed after cleaning. 

3. All boxes, benches, and woodwork to be washed thoroughly at least once 
daily. 

4. All knives, tools, and metal utensils to be sterilized and steamed at least 
once daily. 

DRYING AND COOKING. 

1. Drying and cooking to he carried out in a uniform way as fo temperature 
and time, depending upon the method used in each individual plant. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



1. All fish to be on flaking trays or packed and processed within five hours of 
the time received from the fishermen. 

2. Fish to be packed in a uniform way, depending on the size of the can and 
the style of the pack ; only fish of given size and number to be placed in 
each can. 

3. Sauces and oils used are to be of uniform high quality and of the grade 
commonly used for food purposes. 

4. The pack should be full net weight, or slightly over. 

PROCESSING. 

1. Time, temperature, and style of process to be uniform in each plant, de- 
pending on the general method used there. 

LABELING. 

1. A label should not be misleading in any way and should conform in every 
way with State and Federal laws. 

2. Goods packed and inspected as herein stated may bear on the label the 
following legend: "Packed anil inspected in accordance with the official stand- 
ards of the Southern California Packers' Association." 

BOXING, 

1. Cases of goods packed and inspected according to these rules shall bear a 
stamp giving the inspector's number and the date, to aid in placing responsi- 
bility in case of complaints received later on. 

DITTIES OF INSPECTORS. 

1. To pass on the quality of fish received from the fishermen. 

2. To see that all the above regulations concerning the catching, receiving, 
cleaning, cooking, packing, and labeling of fish are carried out in every par- 
ticular, especially regarding cleanliness and standard pack. 

3. To see I hat the general sanitary regulations are strictly adhered to in all 
cases. 

GENERAL SANITARY REGULATIONS. 

1. Whitewash should be used frequently on walls and ceilings of workrooms 
and canneries. 

2. Screens should be installed to exclude (lies in rooms where raw or cooked 
fish are exposed. 

3. Workrooms should be as light as possible. This is in the interests of elfi- 
ciency and careful grading, as well as sanitation. 

4. Wash rooms and toilets should be kept scrupulously clean and due provisions 
made for maintenance of strict personal cleanliness on the part of all employees. 

5. All metal knives, tools, trays, and baskets should be sterilized with steam 
at least once in 24 hours. 

6. The floors should be of concrete, if possible, and frequently flushed with 
running water. 

7. Worktables should be kept clean, as free from litter as possible, and 
thoroughly washed with lye or antiseptic solution daily. 

S. Forewomen should see that the hands of those who handle fish are thor- 
oughly washed after each absence from the room. 

9. Caps to cover the hair, and a clean apron should be worn by women em- 
ployees handling fish. 

10. Forewomen should observe carefully the general health of women under 
them and also watch especially fr,r any signs of skin or local disease. 

Dr. Clark. We outlined the rules and regulations that seemed to 
us would make the desired improvement, both with a view to improv- 
ing the sanitary quality and standardizing - the pack. Of course, it 
is obvious in any packing organization that the standardization of 
the different, operations must be as nearly complete as possible, not 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 9 

necessarily between the different canneries but in any given cannery 
they must pack their fish as far as possible and handle them in ex- 
actly the same way. If they do not you ^v i 1 1 always notice great 
differences in the quality of the product. 

Senator Fletcher. Does that apply to the particular kinds of fish 
they were packing there, or does it apply generally? 

Dr. Clark. I think it applies to anything. Would you not say so, 
Dr. Weber? 

Dr. Weber. All the different kinds of fish. 

Dr. Clark. The Senator wants to know if you do not think it is 
necessary to standardize the processes, so that the packer will always 
do about the same thing with any particular kind of fish. 

Dr. Weber. They all ought to be handled the <ame way. That is 
true particularly of fish where they are being salted: they ought to 
have the same degree of salting. 

Dr. Clark. Later another meeting was had with these fish can- 
ners. They unanimously approved these proposed regulations that 
we had drawn up, and the next thing they did was to install an in- 
spection service similar to that in Maine among the sardine ca li- 
ners. At that time there were about 22 canneries in southern Cali- 
fornia packing sardines. This applied only to sardines, by the way. 
They began to organize and immediately made arrangements to «;et 
a capable chemist to head that inspection work. It happened that 
they chose one of our chemists from the Bureau of Chemistry, and 
since then he has been carrying on that work. 

Senator Owen. Who is in charge of that work? 

Dr. Clark. Mr. Hendrickson, formerly a member of the Food Re- 
search Laboratory and a member of the Bureau of Chemistry for 10 
or 11 years. He has met with considerable success, and it is a source 
of great satisfaction to us that the final rules and regulations that 
have been adopted by the inspection service after experience with 
them are practically identical with the ones we tentatively drew up 
over a year ago. 

This spring the packers of fish in California — who. by the way. 
had increased in number from 22 to over 80 — unanimously agreed 
to put the packing of tuna under the same rules for standardization 
and improvement of quality as sardines. So, al the present time in 
southern California there are over 30 canneries banded together in a 
self-imposed inspection under the leadership of a man who has had a 
great deal of food-inspection experience and a great deal of chemical 
training. He also has a chemical laboratory to control the whole 
thing and 25 inspectors. 

I am giving that to you in detail, because T think that it is one of 
the good things we have done, although we did not do it in our own 
office, we were directly responsible for it. and Mr. Merritt, the food 
administrator, and others familiar with the California situation say 
it has been a life-saver for the industry. 

Senator Owen. As I understand it. the difficulty about packing 
fish is that fish undergo a rapid deterioration unless properly packed 
and properly handled. 

Dr. Clark. And very promptly. 

Senator Owen. And otherwise ptomaines are liable to develop in 
the food itself? 



10 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Dr. Clark. That is it exactly. 

Senator Owen. And results, therefore, in danger to human health 
if the packing is not done uniformly under a fixed system which will 
safeguard the product against ptomaine poisoning? 

Dr. Clark. Of course, when you say " ptomaine," a chemist "always 
wonders exactly what you mean. 

Senator Owen. We will let that pass. It means poisoning the 
public. 

Dr. Clark. It means disturbance of digestion more or less severe. 

Since that time we have been continuing our work, as I might say, 
along the technical line; that is, we have had one chemist spending 
all of his time in the sardine canneries and tuna canneries of southern 
California helping them in the actual troubles they meet. We have 
insufficient funds for the necessary experimental cannery and 
laboratory. 

Senator Owen. Are they salted, or are they packed in oils, or how 
are they packed? 

Dr. Clark. They are not packed the same way they are in Maine. 
The sardine industry in California is an entirely different proposi- 
tion. The fish are not caught in weirs, because the coast on the west- 
ern part of this country sheers off into deep water. There are no 
flats and no places to put weirs, and the only way one can get sar- 
dines is to go out with nets. The Japanese and Italians are espe- 
cially efficient and go out just before dajdight, and by the phos- 
phorescent gleam in the water can encircle a school of sardines and 
bring them in. Sometimes they get so many they can not land them 
in the boat. From the time the fish are caught until they are actually 
packed in the cans there are a great many differences in the way that 
the fish are handled. 

Senator Owen. There must be a limited amount of time between 
the catching of the fish and the packing? 

Dr. Clark. There is a limited time between the catching of the fish 
and the packing. One of the original rules was that not more than 
five hours should elapse between the time the fish were caught and 
when they were processed. However, that was not found practicable, 
and they had to extend the time to seven hours. We also had to 
make rules and regulations regarding the depth of fish in the boats. 

Senator Owen. To prevent crushing? 

Dr. Clark. Yes. In Maine, as I understand, there wore more can- 
neries than fish. The opposite is true in California. In California 
it is often perfectly feasible to go out a few miles and catch more 
fish .than the 1 touts can bring in: ami the fishermen naturally want 
to bring all the fish they can, and they were in the habit of filling 
the boat 2 or 3 feet deep, and the Italians and Japanese walked all 
over them with hip boots. So one of the regulations Avas to make 
the limit of the height of fish not to exceed 8 inches, but that was 
found too stringent and it had to be. extended to 10 inches. I have 
noticed the Japanese and Italians paint a white line around the in- 
side of the boat at 10 inches, and that is the dead line. Mr. Hen- 
drickson's inspectors — who, by the way, are also deputies of the 
Food Administration — insist that the fish should not be loaded above 
that white mark. That, of course, is to prevent the weight of the 
delicate fish crushing each other, since they will crush by their own 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 11 

weight, and the bottom fish will have their bellies broken through, 
and when canned will look bad. 

Dr. Alsberg. You might explain to the Senator, Dr. Clark, how 
recently the sardine industry began and how really it was a side 
issue in California. 

Dr. Clark. It is a most interesting development. About two years 
ago the tuna industry came to its high point. In other words, the 
beginning of the tuna industry itself does not go much back of 1911 
or 1912, and at great expense, even at the expense of selling fish 
below cost, the people who were interested in tuna sold a can of 
tuna at 10 cents when it cost 20 cents to put it up. They had to do 
that to meet the competition with salmon, which is a staple article. 
Tuna is now established and usually sells for a little higher price 
than salmon. 

Over 8,000.000 cases of salmon, each of 48 cans, were packed in Hie United 
States and Alaska in 1017; also about 150,000 cases of sea and river herring 
and 400,000 cases of tuna; probably 10,000 cases of mackerel and 2,000,000 
cases of sardines in Maine, while about 1,500,000 cases of sardines were 
canned in California. Small packs of desirable but insufficiently introduced 
fish like yellowtail, bonita, etc., were also made. It is likely that the fish 
Cahners of the United States received about S0o\000,000 in 1917 for their 
product. 

The Bureau of Chemistry lias recently investigated the packing of river 
herring on Chesapeake Bay. There are approximately 60 establishments of 
this sort packing salt river herring, canned river herring, and canned roe. 
It is estimated that 40,000 barrels of salt fish. 54.000 cases of canned fish, and 
44.500 cases of roe are packed annually. This is estimated to require 37,000.000 
fishes. 

In the field of the preservation of fish by salting and drying, it may be said 
that about $6,000,000 or $7,000,000 worth of codfish and related fishes were 
preserved in this way at Gloucester, Mass., and .stations in Alaska. About 
30 per cent of the amount of salt dried codfish prepared was exported princi- 
pally to the West Indies. South America, and Central America. 

At present the importation of sardines and kippered herring is practically 
negligible, owing to the disorganized condition of the producers in Europe, 
embargoes, and the shipping situation in general. However, in 1018. the year 
before the war. the United States imported something over $2,500,000 worth 
of sardines and anchovies in oil and over $3,000,000 worth of pickled and 
canned herring together with over $1,000,000 worth of salt mackerel. 

It is very difficult to secure statistics of the total value of fish produced in 
any country. The latesl accurate figures for the United States are those of 
the census made in 1908. However, it is possible to secure accurate figures in 
the case of Alaska for 1917 and conservative estimates have been made for 
the United States in 1917 and other countries from the latest available figures 
and the totals are shown in the table below. The value to the producer is the 
one given here. In the United States the retail values would be from 50 to 
100 per cent greater than these figures. 



Estimated value of fish produced in the United States and 


foreign countrit s. 


Country. 


Year. 


Value. 




1017 
1917 
1916 
1916 
L913 
1913 
1913 
1911 


860,000,000 




,".1,000,000 




45,i»" 




54,000,000 




33,000,000 




11, 000, 000 




14,500,000 




63, 000, 000 







Tuna can only be caught about three or four months in the summer, 
and at best it is a highly uncertain undertaking. 



12 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Senator Owen, Are they caught with nets ? 

Dr. Clark. They are caught with hook and line mostly, and it is 
only at certain times they can catch them. They have to be caught 
one at a time. Often the fishermen go out for many days and do not 
see any tuna, and the next time they will find so many tuna that all 
they have to do is just put out hooks and lines and just drag them in. 

Senator Owen. How large are they ? 

Dr. Clark. They vary greatly in size, depending on their age and 
species. Of course, when I say "tuna," I mean there are three dif- 
ferent fishes packed as tuna, all closely related. 

Senator Owen. Does the barracuda belong to that family? 

Dr. Clark. No; that is a different type of fish. There" is a fish 
on the Atlantic known as k ' tunny " fish, which is nearly identical, or 
at any rate very closely related to the tuna in California. 

Senator Owex. What is the difference ? 

Dr. Clark. Albacore is the name of one ; and then the real or leap- 
ing tuna, and another, I think they call the yellow-fin tuna. Per- 
sonally, I can not pick out all of those different species, but the fisher- 
men can readily tell the difference. All are accepted and paid for 
at the same rate. 

Senator Owex. Are they packed in salt? 

Dr. Clark. They are packed in cottonseed oil in a different way 
from sardines. It is an entirely different industry, but owing to the 
uncertainty of the catch, the people who carry it on realized they 
would have to look to other fields, firstly, in order to keep going con- 
tinuously and keep their organization of labor together; and. 
secondly, because of the uncertainty of the tuna catch, they never 
knew whether the next year they would have any fish or not. In that 
haphazard condition of tuna packing, they began trying to pack 
sardines. 

So that, as Dr. Alsberg said, the sardine industry really developed 
as a side line of the tuna industry, in the attempt to keep plants going 
all through the year. In California sardines can be caught about 10 
months in the year. In fact, they can be caught practically 12 months 
in the year, but not alwa} r s in commercial quantities; but, I under- 
stand, in Maine that in certain months of the winter they can not 
operate. Probably in Maine the season is from April to November. 

Senator Fletcher. Is tuna found anywhere else except on the Cali- 
fornia coast ? 

Dr. Clark. They are found in the Hawaiian Islands and also in 
Japan and off Lower California. 

Senator Owex. Are the sardines found off the Florida con si ? 

Dr. Clark. I think not. but, perhaps. Dr. Coker will tell us. 

Dr. Coker. They are not the same sardines. There is nothing quite 
corresponding to the California sardine, which is the nearest thing 
to the European. There is one small sardine in the West Indian 
waters, but it does not come very much to Florida. 

Senator Owen. Are they there in sufficient quantities to justify 
packing on the Florida coast? 

Dr. Coker. I do not believe they are. There are times when they 
are fairly abundant, but are erratic in quantity. 

Senator Fletcher. Is menhaden related to the sardine? 

Dr. Coker. They belong to the same family of fishes, the herring 
family. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 13 

Senator Owen. But the menhaden is not packed for human con- 
sumption ? 

Dr. Clark. I think not; no; not in any quantity. 

Dr. Alsberg. The menhaden are being eaten, to a small extent, 
by the foreign population in some of the large cities. There is not 
any reason why the menhaden should not be eaten as human food, 
and it has been in some cities by people who do not object to the oil. 

Dr. Clark. As I was saying, we are trying now in every way we 
can to assist the canners in technical ways, and by that I mean by 
improving the methods of their plants. We found we had to 
standardize the drying in the packing process and that great trouble 
comes from improper drying of the pack more than from any other 
one thing. It is one of the crucial points in packing. 

Senator Owen. How is that drying done? 

Dr. Clark. That drying is done in various ways. Some people 
claim that to put up the best sardines they should be dried in the 
sun on a wire screen before cooking, but you can readily understand 
that even in California it rains sometimes. So, during the winter 
season and usually in order to save time, they dry w T ith mechanical 
dryers. The fish pass through on a long galvanized-wire screen 
belt that passes slowly back and forth in a heated compartment, 
where the temperature is kept at 90° to 100°, and the warm air cir- 
culated by fans. The fish go into the dryer wet and come out dry, 
and this drying process is all automatic and continuous. 

Senator Owen. Do the}' use the vacuum process for drying pur- 
poses? 

Dr. Clark. One cannery uses something which they call a vacuum 
process. The main thing is to have the fish properly dried. If the 
fish are not properly dried when they go into the hot oil, the results 
are not satisfactory. They are usually fried in cottonseed oil. All 
those except the ones packed in round cans are fried, with a few 
exceptions. We feel a sardine that is steamed, at least under the 
California conditions, is not quite up to the standard we would like. 

Senator Owen. I was under the impression that olive oil was used 
in canning sardines. 

Dr. Clark. It is in the packing. The frying is merely a cooking 
process, just the same as you would fry them in your home. 

Senator Owen. Then they are packed in olive oil? 

Dr. Alsberg. It might be added that the European — Spanish, 
Portuguese, and French — method is to fry in peanut oil, and then 
let the oil drain off, and then put the fried fish into the can and fill 
with olive oil. 

Senator Owen. They are not cooked in olive oil ? 

Dr. Alsberg. No; because the cooking ruins the flavor, and you 
might just as well cook in a cheaper oil, such as peanut oil. 

Senator Fletcher. Is that so-called olive oil refined oil from cot- 
ton seed? 

Dr. Clark. No. It has been misbranded, but not lately. 

Dr. Alsberg. I would not put it that way. We prosecuted about 
75 people under the food and drugs act, mostly Italians, small men 
around New York, New Haven, and Boston, for doing that. 

Senator Owen. For packing in cottonseed oil ? 

Dr. Alsberg. No; for adulterating olive oil with cottonseed oil. 
We can now say, without much danger of being wrong, that when 



14 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

an article is branded olive oil in this country it is genuine olive oil, 
although every once in a while some little manufacturer will en- 
deavor to put something over by labeling cottonseed oil as olive oil, 
and every year we have a certain number of prosecutions. 

Senator Owen. Does the flavor of the fish keep as well when 
packed in cottonseed oil? 

Dr. Clark. The question of using cottonseed oil or olive oil for 
packing fish is a question of taste rather than of anything else. By 
some sort of a peculiarity of nature it seems as though tuna which 
is packed in cottonseed oil does not taste bad, possibly because the 
fish oil has been cooked out. But when sardines, under certain 
conditions, especially if not properly handled in the plant, are 
packed in cottonseed oil they do not have a flavor that is pleasant 
to many people. But I do not wish to take the position that cotton- 
seed oil is not the proper thing to pack sardines in. It seems to me 
that the Maine industry, which uses largely cottonseed oil, is on a 
very good foundation. They are putting out an article for which 
there is great demand and which has as high food value as the 
California sardines. In other words, people who in the past would 
buy foreign sardines, and pay 25 or 30 cents for a quarter-pound 
can, packed in olive oil, prefer to buy the California sardines and 
pay the price. In other words, there are two distinct markets for 
olive-oil and cottonseed-oil sardines. 

Dr. Alsberg. In time past a great quantity of the sardines packed 
in Maine were sold at retail for 5 cents a can. That is true, is it 
not. Dr. Weber? 

Dr. Weber. Yes. 

Dr. Alsberg. They sold at 5 cents a can. They had to be packed 
in cottonseed oil to be sold at that price, and so far as actual food 
value is concerned there is not anything that would give more food 
value for 5 cents than such a can of sardines. Of course, they are 
not selling for that now. Five cents for a quarter pound of food 
consisting of nitrogenous material packed in oil is certainly very 
cheap. 

Senator Fletcher. It looks as if the can would be worth that 
much. 

Dr. Clark. They are almost, under the present conditions. 

Senator Owen. Are any of those fish absolutely dried out into a 
dry powder and used in that way ? 

Dr. Clark. No. Dr. Alsberg called me back to Washington about 
a month ago, and just before I left California one of the firms that 
has had the greatest success in producing dried vegetables started 
experiments on the dehydration of fish by the same process. 

Senator Owen. By the true-vacuum process? 

Dr. Clark. I think so, but I have never had an opportunity to go 
to Santa Rosa, where their plant is, to examine it. 

Senator Owen. Have you any samples of absolutely dried fish with 
you here to-day? 

Dr. Clark. I have not ; it is all an experiment so far. 

I believe, however, that Dr. Weber has done something along that 
line on the Atlantic coast with the fish caught there. And I think 
there is a future along that linei I was going to say, however, in 
passing, that at the present time we are trying to extend this work 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 15 

on packing sardines so as to pack mackerel in the same way as tuna, 
and also skipjack, bonita, and yellowtail, and a whole group of other 
fish of the very highest food value, which are not at present utilized 
in any way. 

Senator Owen. Are those fish abundant in California '. 

Dr. Clark. They are very abundant in California, and as they are 
of different species they run at different times, so that a plant, 
operating on tuna and sardines, could get two or three kinds of these 
other fishes throughout the year and thus keep continuously at work. 

But the great difficulty is to get the people to eat these new kinds of 
fish. For instance. I will show you some very attractive cans of 
yellowtail. mackerel, and bonita, which are just as good as tuna fish, 
and cheaper than tuna, and if you taste the yellowtail you will think 
it has just as good a flavor as any tuna. But you can not sell much 
of it for it is difficult to educate the people to eat it. 

Senator ( )wen. They do not like the yellow name of the fish? 

Dr. Clark. They do not like the yellowtail name on the label. 
If we change to " amber fish," there is the same difficulty. In the 
four years I have been working on fish questions the thing that has 
most impressed me is the enormous amount of prejudice people have 
against fish. Many people will not eat it at all: others will eat it 
only once a week, and it is a pretty hard proposition to get people 
to eat a new fish or fish product any time. 

Senator Owen. Did not the department name one fish the dogfish? 

Dr. Clark. The Bureau of Fisheries christened some of these fish • 
with new names. 

Senator Owen. Would it not be advisable to give them a baptismal 
name that is more attractive than " dogfish " ? 

Dr. Clark. Yes; but regard must be had to the pure-food law in 
that respect. 

Dr. Alsberg. In the long run. Senator Owen, it pays better to 
keep the names, to a certain extent, straight. Now, take the sardine 
industry. Five or six years ago, when canners were thinking of going 
into the industry to fill in between the tuna pack, they wanted to be 
permitted, under the food and drugs act, to pack real sardines under 
the name of herring, but we objected to that. Of course, we felt that 
real sardines are a much better fish than herring, and that it would be 
bad policy to allow them to be called herring. I do not doubt that 
to-day they are very glad that they packed them as sardines and not 
as herring, as they had originally intended. 

In the same way, at the present time they have immense quantities 
of anchovies on the coast which they are not using at all. That is 
one of the fish that they wanted to pack as sardines. The anchovy 
is a fish which, in the markets of the East and of Europe, has a 
higher value than the sardine ; and I am sure it would be better policy 
for them to go, perhaps, a little slower and pack them for a year or 
two as anchovies and to put them out on their merits. 

In the case of the dogfish and the yellow tail, for which little mar- 
ket exists at present under those names, it is an entirely different 
question, as anchovies have an actual market at present in certain 
districts. 

The Bureau of Fisheries renamed the dogfish, with our consent, 
the " gray fish." 



16 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Senator Fletcher. Has not the tilefish come back into use ? 

Mr. Radcliffe. Yes, sir. 

Senator Fletcher. How are they holding out? 

Mr. Radcliffe. Very well. 

Senator Fletcher. Are they canning those fish at all now? 

Mr. Radcliffe. No ; they are all sold fresh. 

Senator Fletcher. There is a singular thing connected with the 
catfish that they get out of the Florida rivers; they are regarded 
there as having no food value at all. But when they ship it up to 
Tennessee and other States it is considered as fine a food as codfish ; 
they consider it as very choice food. 

Dr. Clark. The same condition exists in California in regard to 
shad and striped bass, which were planted in California rivers; they 
are not native to California. The people of California do not eat 
the flesh of the shad, except in very limited quantities. The roe is 
canned and it is also shipped fresh, and is eaten fried with bacon; 
it is considered one of the great delicacies in San Francisco during 
the season. But they have found out in California during the last 
few years that the} 7 can ship this shad east — from the Sacramento 
River to the eastern cities — and make a good profit out of it after pay- 
ing $600 to $700 express charges on a carload. That is because that 
shad is not appreciated in the State where it grows. The undeveloped 
fish resources in California and Florida are enormous, but such new 
fish must be introduced to the people. 

• Senator Owen. So that the market for fish seems to be somewhat 
whimsical, does it? 

Dr. Clark. Yes: it is a matter of prejudice; the flavor of the fish 
has little to do with it. The Californian does not eat shad, because 
his mother did not cook it for him when he was young; but he will 
eat the shad roe, and he thinks it is fine. 

Senator Fletcher. Did you ever experiment with any other fish 
except the sardine and the tuna that you have mentioned? 

Dr. Clark. Yes ; I was going to discuss that in a few minutes. 

Senator Fletcher. All right. 

Dr. Clark. The need for work is very great along the lines of can- 
ning these different new fish that I have mentioned, like yellowtail, 
bonita, skipjack, anchovies, barracuda, rock cod, and sea bass. Those 
fish are not utilized in canning in any quantity. There is great 
need of an experimental cannery to work out all these things in a 
practical way. 

Senator Owen. Can they be canned in large packages, say, of 15 
or 20 pounds each? 

Dr. Clark. I doubt it. It is not possible to completely sterilize 
anything in too large a can. The tomato canneries have found that 
when they tried to pack tomatoes in 1-gallon cans sometimes they 
would spoil before they got into the hands of the consumer. It is 
not always possible to sterilize in large cans. 

Senator Owen. On account of decomposition taking place ? 

Dr. Clark. Because the package is too large. 

Dr. Alsberg. In order to sterilize them you have to heat them 
through, and in trying to get the heat to penetrate all through in a 
large-sized can you burn the outside before you get the heat into 
the interior, so that you run the risk of not having the interior steril- 
ized, and it will decompose. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 17 

Dr. Clark. And that, of course, would be very much worse in the 
case of fish than with vegetables, because the decomposition products 
are so very much more offensive. So that I doubt if it is feasible 
to pack fish in large cans. 

Senator Owen. So that the packing of fish must be done in com- 
paratively shallow cans? 

Dr. Clark. Yes; until we have further knowledge on the subject. 
I should say, offhand, that it is a pretty good guess to say that cans 
larger than 1 pound for fish could not be used successfully. 

Senator Owen. But if the moisture could be absolutely extracted, 
so as to leave an absolutely dry fish, it could be canned in a can of any 
size, could it not? 

Dr. Clark. That is probably true. But Ave should not confuse 
dehydrating with canning. When you dehydrate fish you put it in 
such a state that the bacteria can not grow in it. Now, you are using 
the absence, of water in the same way in dried products that you are 
using the heat in the other kind of preservation by canning. The 
preservation of fish by drying is an entirely different process from 
the preservation of fish or other products by canning. 

Senator Owen. I understand that. But I was considering this 
matter in connection with furnishing Europe with a rapid supply of 
foodstuffs from our packing industry; I thought that possibly the 
fish, which are available in such quantities in this country, might be 
packed on a large scale and supplied to the people of Europe, who 
are now suffering for food. 

Dr. Clark. Surely. But when you used the word " packing," you 
led me astray, because in the fishing industry the term " packing " is 
very often used in a technical sense, meaning canning. I thought you 
meant to use it in that way. 

Senator Owen. Well, I have no technical knowledge of the indus- 
tr}'; but I have been impressed with the lack of food supplies in Eu- 
rope; and I thought that America might respond to that need by 
packing fish on a very large scale and furnishing fish to the European 
people along with the other food supplies that we are compelled to 
send them anyway. 

Dr. Clark. I think Ave could do it. 

Senator Oaven. What would be the best method of preserving fish 
for the purpose of furnishing Europe with food ? 

Dr. Clark. For export? 

Senator Oaaen. Yes. 

Dr. Clark. That would be a pretty difficult question to answer. If 
methods of drying fish were worked out so that they Avould be per- 
fectly satisfactory, I should think, offhand, that that would be the 
best method, because they would take less space, and no tin Avould be 
required. 

Senator Owen. In that case, they Avould not have to ship water? 

Dr. Clark. No. 

Senator Oaa t en (continuing). Which carries with it the possibility 
of decomposition? 

Dr. Clark. Yes; and you would not have to use tinplate, which 
is a serious matter at this time. 

Senator Owen. The fish might be packed in boxes of cardboard. 
or something of that sort, might it not ? 

87959—18 2 



18 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Dr. Clark. Yes ; if it was sufficiently dried. 

Senator Fletcher. Is there any wav of preserving it bj^ the use 
of salt? 

Dr. Clark. There is; yes. 

Senator Fletcher. Salting them and shipping them in cases ? 

Dr. Clark. Yes. Of course, there are two large fish-drying indus- 
tries in the United States at the present time. One is the salt-cod 
industry around Gloucester and the other is the salt-cod industry in 
Alaska. We have made several successful smoked and salted fish 
products in California lately. 

Senator Owen. Those fish can be handled in barrels, can they not? 

Dr. Clark. They can be handled in barrels or in any way you 
want to handle them, provided the fish do not get damp, or if the 
temperature does not get too high. 

Senator Phelan. If it gets too high ? 

Dr. Clark. Yes. 

Senator Owen. What would be the best method of packing fish 
for European consumption? 

Dr. Clark. I am not prepared to answer that question; but I 
should think dehydrated, if we can do it, would be the best all- 
round method. 

Senator Owen. But your bureau has not had a sufficient appropri- 
ation yet to justify you in carrying on experiments in the drying 
method ? 

Dr. Clark. Dr. Weber has, possibly, in New England; but I did 
not tackle that problem in California. Our funds there were only 
sufficient to begin our work on canning and salting and smoking fish 
in a small way. 

Dr. Alsberg. We have not had enough funds to go into the de- 
hydration of fish generally; we have gone more into the dehydra- 
tion of vegetables. 

Senator Owen. Well, in the dehydration of vegetables. I under- 
stood you to say that you found a very great success ? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes; it is a question at present largely of merchan- 
dizing ; it is the same proposition with these new products of " put- 
ting it over," so to speak, with the public; that is the present diffi- 
culty. 

Senator Owen. Does that dehydrating process also apply to fruit 
juices? 

Dr. Alsberg. We have not worked out a dehydrating process for 
ordinary fruit juices satisfactorily as yet. We are at work on it at 
present, but do not consider that we have solved that problem. 

Senator Owen. My attention was called some time ago to the freez- 
ing process, by which the fruit juices would be subjected to a great 
deal of cold and frozen and then be rotated rapidly, as in a milk sep- 
arator, so that the fruit juices would flow outside and leave the water 
as ice on the inside, and in that way the concentrated juice was a 
self-preserving fluid. 

Dr. Alsberg. We have done that, but we have not regarded that 
as dehydration. You can take apple juice and remove about two- 
thirds of the water and get a reasonably thick sirup that will keep 
for quite a long time, and that only has to be diluted to get back the 
original flavor; that is substantially the method you outlined. You 
can do that with most fruit juices, but we have not yet convinced 



FISH INDUSTRY IN" THE UNITED STATES. 19 

anybody that there is enough money in that particular proposition 
to have it taken up commercially. We have demonstrated it and re- 
ceived most flattering opinions concerning the product, but no one 
has yet felt like risking an investment in it. 

Senator Phelan. You spoke of marketing dehydrated fruits and 
vegetables. I understand that dehydrated vegetables are a commer- 
cial success and are on the market now. 

Dr. Alsberg. They are are on the market now, Senator, but I think 
it is a bit early to say whether they are a commercial success or not. 

Senator Phelan. The Government has purchased from one man in 
California $1,200,000 worth of dehydrated vegetables. And he told 
me the last time I spoke to him that he had alreadj 7 received $600,000 
on account from the Government. 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes.- I did not know the orders were as large as 
that. He has had Government orders. But, of course, that was not 
what I had in mind; that is an ephemeral matter; that is a thing 
that will end when we bring our people back from France. 

Senator Phelan. But the Government would not have made these 
purchases unless the products were satisfactory. 

Dr. Alsberg. I do not mean to imply that the products were not 
satisfactory. They are satisfactory; but the average housewife at 
present is not buying them and the average restaurant keeper or 
hotel keeper is not buying them. 

Senator Owen. There is nobody really offering them in a definite 
way to the market, is there ? 

Dr. Alsberg. No; that is also true at the present time. Nobody 
has undertaken the kind of campaign that has to be undertaken to 
market a breakfast food; that remains to be done. The public does 
not know about them. 

Senator Phelan. Well, a man like Horst, when the Government 
ceases to be a customer, will probably develop his trade elsewhere. 

Dr. Alsberg. We hope so. 

Senator Phelan. I asked, on his behalf, that the commissary of 
the Army and of the Navy accept samples of his goods in various 
camps so as to try them, and they refused to do so, on the ground 
that they had no present intention of purchasing the products, and 
there was no use in sending samples; so that the purchases must have 
been made for use abroad and not in this country. 

Dr. Alsberg. My understanding of the situation in this country, 
so far as the Quartermaster Department is concerned, is as follows: 
The Quartermaster Department says this is no time for trying ex- 
periments, and that the Quartermaster Department will endeavor to 
feed the men, wherever they may be, in as nearly the same manner 
as the men are accustomed to in their own homes as possible. 

Senator Phelan. Now, we are appropriating money for the Quar- 
termaster Department to carry on its operations, and there is an 
enormous item for transportation alone. And they ship these things 
in cans — and tin is a very valuable mineral product at this time — and 
it seems to me that it is very well worth while trying this experiment. 
I should think the answer of the Quartermaster Department should 
be rebuked. 

Dr. Alsberg. That is for shipping abroad ; and the attitude of the 
Quartermaster Department, as I understand it, is that that depart- 
ment will buy these materials in so far as the shipping situation 



20 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

makes it necessary, and not a bit more. They have bought some of 
these materials for shipment abroad, because the Shipping Board 
told them they could not get the space to send ordinary canned goods. 

Senator Phelan. But the Agricultural Department must have told 
them that these dehydrated vegetables are a good food. 

Dr. Alsberg. Oh, yes. 

Senator Phelan. Then, if they are good for the camps abroad 
they are good for the camps at home. 

Dr. Alsberg. Unquestionably. 

Senator Phelan. And I understand that their use would save the 
use of 150 cars in sending the same food value in the dried product 
that was sent of the canned product. 

Senator Owen. I agree with Senator Phelan that the Quarter- 
master Department deserves a rebuke. They have no right to sit 
there and disregard the saving of freight in this country when the 
Agricultural Department has demonstrated that these materials are 
just as good as fresh vegetables when you add water. 

Senator Phelan. That is my understanding; they are a whole- 
some kind of food. 

Senator Fletcher. I think there is no doubt — in fact, I can pro- 
duce authority for the statement, if needed — that a manufacturer in 
Canada put up some of these dehydrated vegetable products at the 
time of the Boer War, and he had some left over, and they are now 
being used. 

Dr. Clark. Yes, I think that is a fact. 

Dr. Alsberg. That is correct. 

Senator Fletcher. They are perfectly good now. I have tasted 
some soup made of dehydrated vegetables, and you can not tell the 
difference from that made from fresh vegetables. 

Dr. Alsberg. You can not in the case of a stew or a soup. When 
you are serving the vegetable as a vegetable, it may have a different 
flavor. Its food value will be the same, except in one respect, that 
some vegetables after they are dried have lost their antiscorbutic 
properties. 

Senator Phelan. What properties? 

Dr. Alsberg. Antiscorbutic; the property of preventing scurvy. 
Of course, under modern conditions that is not a factor; we do not 
have scurvy, except in infants who are fed on certain abnormal foods; 
we do not have the scurvy here nowadays, and I have not heard from 
any one who has been in France that there is any evidence of danger 
from it there. But it is only fair to say that some vegetables lose 
this particular property — or, at least, in part. Otherwise they have 
exactly the food value of the fresh vegetables. 

Senator Owen. What effect has the embargo on olive oil had on 
the packing of fish ? 

Dr. Clark. Of course, I can only speak for California. 

Senator Owen. I am speaking of California. 

Dr. Clark. It happened in Monterey that the packers were pretty 
well supplied with olive oil at the time the embargo went into effect. 
That is for the reason that the Monterey factories are canning ovals 
mostly, so that the amount of olive oil they keep always on hand 
there would pack enough quarter or half pound cans for them. In 
southern California the people were not in such good shape; they 



FISH INDUSTRY IK TITE UNITED STATES. 21 

were quite disturbed when the embargo order came out. We wired 
the Food Administration for relief, but the Food Administration and 
the War Trade Board said that the embargo would have to stick. 
As soon as we advised the packers of that, they knew they had to do 
something quickly; and in California there was a resource in the 
case of the peach-kernel oil; a great many peaches are dried and 
canned in California; and the pit-; have heretofore been thrown away 
or used in the boilers for fuel, at $4 a ton. They are now used for 
gas masks. 

Dr. Alsberg. They used to be cracked and sent to Germany before 
the war. 

Senator Owen. Did they use the oil from the peach kernel I 

Dr. Clark. Yes. By pressing the kernel they get a very good oil. 
There is one firm near San Diego that has practically a monopoly of 
it, and that firm will produce somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 
gallons of peach-kernel oil a year. Of course, you know what hap- 
pened — some of the packers rushed to these people and got big con- 
tracts, so that the others who did not get any early did not gel any 
at all. So that some of them have had to fall back on peanut oil. 
We have had a good many different kinds of peanut oil. 

Senator Owen. How does peanut oil serve the purpose? 

Dr. Clark. The peanut oil is very good, but for people who like 
the real olive oil it has not the same flavor: there is nothing like the 
olive-oil flavor. That is because people have been accustomed to it. 
They will pay any price for it. 

Senator Owen. The olive oil. then, in preferred in the markets 
which have been established heretofore? 

Dr. Clark. Yes; right in California, olive-oil sardines are pre- 
ferred to a great extent. 

Senator Piielan. Why was olive oil put under embargo? 

Dr. Clark. I think it was because of the shipping situation. 

Senator Piielan. The shipping situation? 

Dr. Clark. Yes. 

Senator Piielan. Were our native olive oils shipped abroad? 

Dr. Clark. No; for some reason or other it was claimed, first — I 
am speaking from memory only — that the people in Spain and Italy 
did not produce enough olive oil to export, they needed it at home; 
and secondly, it was said the Shipping Board did not want to use 
space on ships coming back to this country. 

Senator Owen. I do not think that claim is justified by the facts 
in either case, because the information 1 have in regard to the matter 
is that they have a surplus of olive oil in Spain; they are compelled 
to carry over a full year's extra supply, because they can not market 
it: and that there are Spanish vessels which would be released that 
could bring that oil to the fish packers in America. 

Dr. Clark. That may be true. I have heard rumors to that effect 
myself. But at the present time the fish packers can not get olive 
oil. and the only olive oil they have is what they happened to have 
in stock; and in some canneries I have seen large numbers of pint. 
quart, or gallon cans of olive oil of different brands — every brand of 
olive oil I ever heard of — being put in cans of sardines in order to fill 
their contracts for olive-oil sardines. 

Senator Owen. Has olive oil increased very much in price? 



22 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Dr. Clark. From $3.50 to $7.50 a gallon, in carload lots, paid by 
the packers. 

Senator Phelan. How about the olive oil produced in California ? 

Dr. Clark. The olive oil produced in California is a fine product 
for eating on a salad, but it will not satisfy the requirements for 
packing fish, because there is too much acid in the oil ; they are not 
careful enough in making it. By refining, this acid can be removed, 
but when it is most of the flavor is lost also. So the California can- 
ners do not use California olive oil. 

Senator Phelan. I saw a statement yesterday that cottonseed oil 
is being substituted for olive oil. 

Dr. Clark. For sardines? 

Senator Phelan. No; for the table. And the Agriculture De- 
partment said that it was a fraud under the pure food and drugs act, 
because it was labeled and marketed as olive oil and it is not olive oil. 

Senator Fletcher. Are the fish packers having any trouble by 
reason of having their men taken away from them ? 

Dr. Clark. Yes: that has been a very verious situation in Cali- 
fornia. 

Senator Fletcher. That has been one great difficulty in Florida, 
and I am informed that a good many people engaged in the fishing 
and canning industry have been obliged to abandon it because they 
have lost their men. 

Dr. Clark. That is a very serious condition. We have had a great 
many fishermen coming in to see if they could not get deferred classi- 
fication in the draft. 

Senator Phelan. How about conditions in Monterey ? 

Dr. Clark. There is not so much difficulty there. Most of the 
fishermen who go from San Francisco to Alaska are Americans or 
naturalized Americans, and many of them were taken from the 
salmon-packing operations in Alaska. 

Another thing that I should like to have go into the record that 
is going to limit the production of food fish from California is that 
it is almost impossible to secure enough twine for making nets. Now, 
if there is any possible influence that the Senators can use with the 
imports bureau of the War Trade Board, or with the War Industries 
Board, to get twine through from the Orient or from Scotland to 
California it should be done, because without those nets the fisher- 
men can not catch the fish. At the present time they are using cotton 
nets, which do not give satisfaction. They will not stand up like 
the linen nets. And it is claimed that the price of linen twine for 
making nets has risen in a most unreasonable manner. I am not 
qualified to say whether that is true or not ; but the fishermen are con- 
tinually complaining about the price they have to pay for linen twine 
for making their nets. And that is a limiting factor, of course, in 
getting the fish. 

Senator Phelan. How about Scotland ? 

Dr. Clark. A little comes from there, and little comes in from 
Japan now. As I said, a good deal of cotton is used ; but cotton is 
not satisfactory. A good linen net will stand for two or three 
years; a cotton net will not last one season. And certain of these 
nets are many hundred yards long; and some of them cost several 
hundred dollars. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 23 

Senator Fletcher. Can you use hemp from Manila? 

Dr. Clark. They have tried to use hemp from Manila, but it is 
not altogether a success; in the water it frays out and goes to 
pieces, I believe. 

Senator Owen. Do we pack our fish by the same process as they 
do in Portugal and Spain ? 

Dr. Clark. I can not answer that question positively, but in Cali- 
fornia I think they do, especially where it is fried. 

There are two types of fish packing: One is called the round-can 
method, which was the first kind used: that consisted in packing the 
fish raw and then steaming it; in other words, cooking the fish by 
live steam and letting the water run out of the can. That was a 
good idea in the beginning: but. as in the case of all of these other 
things, the people got careless; the fish were not properly cleaned: 
they would leave the entrails in; and it was owing to that carelessness 
that this system of inspection that I mentioned a while ago was 
started. But good round-can sardines are perfectly good food and 
are being packed now in considerable quantities. 

Senator Owen. In packing the sardines they are packed whole, are 
they not? 

Dr. Clark. Minus their heads and entrails. 

Senator Owen. They do clean them, do they? 

Dr. Clark. They are supposed to, and under the inspection they 
are required to do so. The fish are cut by hand. A person who can 
invent a machine that will cut and clean the fish will develop a great 
industry, if it will do the work well. 

Senator Phelan. Like the machine that takes the seed out of the 
raisin grape '( Could they use some such principle as that % 

Dr. Clark. Yes; if they could develop that. They have a machine 
now in use in the salmon canneries that they call the "iron Chink/" 
It is called Chink, because it takes the place of several Chinamen. 
They used to have a gang of four or five Chinamen doing the work 
that one of these large machines now does— that is. in gutting, sliming. 
and handling the fish for canning: it makes all that a mechanical 
operation. If we could do the same thing in sardine canning it would 
be a great improvement. 

Dr. Alsberg. The bureau has been at work, under Dr. Weber's di- 
rection, for several years on developing a machine for just that pur- 
pose. We have taken out several patents for one or another feature 
of it; the patents, of course, are taken out for the benefit of the gen- 
eral public. At present at Gloucester the Gorton Pew Co. are ex- 
perimenting with that particular machine, under his direction. 
Whether or not it will be a success we do not know. 

Senator Owen. Have you any dehydrated fish at all here that you 
can show us \ 

Dr. Alsberg. We have some up in our laboratory, but I think none 
here. None of your dried-fish samples are here : are they, Dr. Weber \ 

Dr. Weber. No ; none of them are here. 

Senator Phelan. How do they preserve those fish that are not put 
up in cans? 

Dr. Alsberg. They are dried, salted, and smoked. 

Senator Phelan. Sun dried? 

Dr. Alsberg. No; usually dried and smoked. 



24 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Senator Owen. The smoking acts as a preservative, does it? 

Dr. Alsberg. The smoking acts as a preservative. 

Senator Owen. And it is preservative that is harmless and really 
adds an agreeable flavor? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes; adds an agreeable flavor. 

Senator Owen. The thing that I think is of urgent importance is 
to ascertain whether or not we can add. in an immediate way, to the 
supplies of food we send to Europe. If the dehydration of fish could 
be worked out by the department — the fish certainly are abundant 
enough — if they could be dried and packed so as to be free from the 
possibility of fermentation. 

Dr. Pennington. In some places and at some times, Senator; but 
we have been having a very marked fish shortage. For instance, 
croakers have been selling for $23 a barrel at the catching point: 
they were $18 a barrel yesterday on the Maryland and Virginia 
coasts — 200 pounds of fish sold for $18 at the catching point. To try 
to increase the fish supply the Food Administration has arranged 
with the Emergency Fleet Board to build 75 fish trawlers, to be in 
operation this winter. 

Senator Owen. Well, there are parts of the country in which fish 
are very abundant, and in dealing with an international question the 
thing to do would be to go where the fish are, and not to pay any 
attention to a place where they are not, because thai is not of any 
interest. 

Dr. Pennington. If we could get the fish everywhere that they 
happen to be ■ 

Senator Owen. Yes. 

Dr. Pennington. Unfortunately, the fish do not happen to be 
always in one plaee: and Ave have these very migratory fish to deal 
with — that we have to follow around, more or less — and we can not 
take either a drying factory or a canning plant along with us; and, 
therefore, we must take the fish to the drying factory or canning 
factor}^. 

Dr. Alsberg. That is part of the problem; and another part of it 
is, can we get the people on the other side to take that kind of food? 

Senator Owen. I should think the people who were starving would 
take almost any kind of food, especially a food which has a high 
protein value. 

Dr. Alsberg. They ought to, but people are Aery peculiar about 
that. It is my understanding that the Commission for Belgian Relief 
had the greatest difficulty in getting the Belgians, starving as they 
were, to eat corn meal ; they had to give it a fancy name. As long 
as they called it by the French equivalent for corn the Belgians looked 
on it as cattle feed, and they could not be made to eat it. Then they 
called it Cerealine. or Cerealose. or something like that — camou- 
flaged it — and they managed to get rid of it. 

Senator Phelan. There was a great campaign conducted once by 
a man named C. J. Murphy, under the Agricultural Department, to 
educate the people up to the consumption of corn. He had kitchens 
in different parts of Europe: and I understood he had made a success 
of it. They called him Corn Meal Murphy: he is still alive: I know 
him. 

Dr. Alsberg. The question is, whether we can fairly say he made a 
success of it. because the onlv countries where they ate corn meal 



FISH INDUSTRY IN" THE UNITED STATES. 25 

before the war were countries like Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, 
and the Levant, where they also produce it — including southern 
Russia. There was very little corn eaten in Great Britain or France, 
excepting in the form of cornstarch; or in the Scandinavian coun- 
tries. The hardest thing in the world to do is to change people's 
food habits. 

Senator Phelan. You can mix the corn meal with something 
else and get them to eat it? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes; that is the way they do it; which, of course, 
meets with the objection of the millers. 

Senator Owen. Dr. Pennington, you offer the substantial objec- 
tion that the fish on the Atlantic coast, at least, are so migratory that 
they would not be available for any packing plants on a very large 
scale throughout the year. Is that what I am to understand I 

STATEMENT OF DR. M. E. PENNINGTON, CHIEF OF FOOD RE- 
SEARCH LABORATORY, BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY, DEPARTMENT 
OF AGRICULTURE. 

Dr. Pennington. Xo: I would not go quite as far as that. But 
the question is, on the east coast, that the consumption of the fresh 
fish in competition with the canning plant or the drying plant is 
one which is a good deal more important than it is on the west coast, 
where the canning industry has had rather the right of way in the 
past. 

Of course, Ave have the Gloucester dried-fish industry, and salted 
fish, and the sardine industry of Maine; those are the two real indus- 
tries in the way of rendering fish imperishable on the east coast, aside 
from freezing, which is, of course, another method of preserving fish ; 
and so far as they are hard frozen they are practically imperishable. 

But we have never had the development of the canning or the dry- 
ing on the east coast, partly because of the difficulty in locating near 
the factories the fish to be canned — just such trouble as they had in 
canning, because they had to go too far to get their supplies. And 
then there is the competition with the fresh fish. 

Now. that is one thing that we may be able to do something with 
in Florida, where the supply is heavy ordinarily: it has been pretty 
short this summer. Where we can have an all-the-year-round fish- 
ing business, where 1 the winter weather does not interfere with it, and 
where we have a large number of new fishes that have not been used 
for food heretofore — only locally used — and which can be handled in 
such wise that we can send them a long distance, either under ice or 
hard frozen, or when we know how they can undoubtedly be smoked 
or salted and canned, as on the Gulf coast, we may be able to do 
something. We have one cannery on the Gulf coast now. I tele- 
graphed yesterday for samples of their product, but, unfortunately, 
there has not been time for them to get it up here. The products 
that that cannery is putting out are very attractive in a great many 
ways. It is an entirely new industry down there. 

Senator Owen. The test really has not been adequately made, as 
I understand it, of completely dehydrating the fish — the flesh of the 
fish? 

Dr. Pennington. For food purposes? 

Senator Owen. So as to reduce it to a powder, or to a dry meal? 



26 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Dr. Pennington. We have the fish meals, which are used for cattle 
feeds and poultry feeds, and for fertilizers. 

Senator Owen. Yes. 

Dr. Pennington. It is not as fine as flour, but it is a fine meal. 

Senator Owen. How is that done — just by subjecting it to heat? 

Dr. Pennington. Ordinarily the oil is subtracted first, because in 
many cases the oil is the more valuable product. 

Senator Owen. Yes. 

Dr. Pennington. Then the remaining material is dried by hot air 
and pressure. 

Senator Owen. But for human food the fish has not been really 
put on the market as a dried meal, with the oil remaining in the fish ? 

Dr. Pennington. Not that I know of. 

Dr. Coker. We have been making some experiments with the fresh 
fish, and we now have a product that looks satisfactory ; but we are 
not sure as to its keeping qualities. It will take some time to test 
that out. Then there are problems as to flavor and texture. 

Senator Owen. When the fish has been dehydrated, does the oil 
of the fish seem to be sufficient to act as a preservative ? 

Dr. Coker. The fish does seem to be very well preserved. I am 
not enough of a chemist to know whether the oil would have much 
effect or not. 

Dr. Weber. I think that is one of the points that will have to be 
given very careful attention to determine whether the oil will not 
become rancid when it is dried, and therefore spoil the product, 

Senator Owen. Yes. 

Dr. Weber. There are certain varieties of fish which will dry 
more quickly than others. 

Senator Owen. Yes; I understand, as a matter of fact, that the 
oils themselves undergo decomposition because of water being left 
in the oil. 

Dr. Weber. Yes. 

Senator Owen. And if the extraction of the water is complete the 
oils are self-preservative. 

Dr. Weber. Well, the other factors there are light and tempera- 
ture, which cause rancidity; if you remove the moisture entirely, 
you remove one of the causes of the oil spoiling. Now, a dried prod- 
uct of fish might contain 4 or 5 per cent of moisture. In fact, the 
commercial feeds from fish do contain from 5 to 8 per cent of water. 
They are very dry, and will rattle around ; still that might be suffi- 
cient water to cause rancidity in the oil. 

Mr. Radcliffe. While it is not part of this hearing, I may say 
that the Bureau of Fisheries are conducting experiments now with 
regard to the dehydration of fish, and we are pushing that work as 
rapidly as we can to see what can be done in the dehvdration of 
fish. 

Senator Owen. That experiment is being carried on by the Bureau 
of Fisheries, is it ? 

Mr. Radcliffe. Yes. 

Senator Owen. Where? 

Mr. Radcliffe. In New York City. A very small plant has been 
assembled, and we are gradually making experiments to start the 
development of this thing. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN" THE UNITED STATES. 27 

Senator Owen. Are you doing that by a vacuum system? 

Mr. Kadcliffe. Yes ; a vacuum system. 

Senator Owen. The advantages of the vacuum system, as I under- 
stand it, are that, not using heat, the results are more reliable than 
where heat is used, as that may result in decomposition. 

Mr. Kadcliffe. Yes. One of our initial experiments will go to 
the other extreme, the use of cold. 

Senator Owen. The use of cold? 

Mr. Kadcliffe. Yes, sir. We freeze the fish and extract the 
moisture. 

Senator Owen. Just as you would in the case of fruit juices? 

Mr. Kadcliffe. T am not familiar with the method employed with 
fruit juices. 

Senator Owen. Dr. "Weber, will you explain the operations at 
Gloucester ? 

The Chairman. The salting process. 

Senator Owen. What you have done in the way of preserving with 
salt. 

Dr. Weber. We have not been preserving with salt. 

Senator Owen. What have you done at Gloucester? 

Dr. Weber. We have been interested in the canning and storage of 
fish and experiments on the process of improving the canning of 
dogfish, or grayfish. We have some samples of those here that I 
would like to show you. 

Senator Owen. All right. 

Mr. Weber. And in dehydrating fish. Those were the three main 
features of the work we were proposing to do. When you men- 
tioned a moment ago the method of drying in a vacuum it reminded 
me that we are installing a vacuum apparatus for drying fish there, 
which had just arrived when I was called down here. 

But the surprising thing is that fish can be dried to a very nice 
product, and a good-appearing product, by simply driving air into 
these funnel pipes, such as they use in the drying of sardines; by 
cooking the fish previously and drying it into a comparatively 
dry condition it dries down into a very nice product. 

Senator Owen. The old-fashioned herring — I do not know how 
it is treated — but I have always regarded it as a very attractive fish. 

Dr. Weber. It is smoked 

Senator Owen (interposing). It is dried and smoked and salted, 
is it not? 

Dr. Weber. A great deal of water is taken from the fish previous 
to drying by the salting. It is put down in salt brine and held for 
a few days and then kept in the atmosphere a few days until it is 
thoroughly dried. The smoking also acts as a preservative. 

Senator Owen. It looks to me as if you would get the moisture 
back again. 

Dr. Alsberg. It does to some extent, but you see they are packed 
in salt, and the salt being hydroscopic removes the water and dis- 
solves itself. 

Senator Owen. Yes; I guess that is right. 

Mr. Weber. The salt is for the purpose of extracting the water. 
The dried products came back dehydrated in very nice shape and 
form. 



28 FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

I was talking about the use of oil in the fish a moment ago. Such 
fish as the whiting and the cod will dry to much better advantage 
than mackerel, for instance, which is a very fat fish and which you 
will not be able to dry at all ; that is, the amount of fat is very much 
augmented in the dried product. They can be returned to their 
original condition by soaking in water — they will return very nicely 
to their original condition. The fiber is not quite as soft as it is in 
the original fish. We are planning, before saying anything definitely 
about that, to test out whether this dried product will keep properly ; 
whether or not, when it is put upon the market, it will become rancid 
and unpleasant. The little experience we have had so far as to that, 
particularly with dried roe 

Senator Owen (interposing). The dried, salt herring seems to 
stand very well ; that seems to have been very stable, and it has 
been very popular. 

Dr. Weber. That has been very popular; quantities of dried 
smoked herring are shipped to the southern climate. 

Senator Owen. That would seem to have fairly tested out the 
drying and salting of fish, would it not ? 

Dr. Weber. Well, the smoking adds a preservative to that and at 
the same time gives it a distinctive flavor. 

Senator Owen. Yes; it gives it a distinctive flavor. I wanted to 
ask, Dr. Weber, what the Government, in your judgment, should 
do with regard to extending these experiments and providing the 
means necessary for developing them? 

Dr. Weber. 1 think there is more opportunity in the fishing in- 
dustry — my experience is only on the Atlantic coast, however — of 
extending the work along those lines and developing additional foods 
than with any other food product. It seems to me that the fishing 
industry has been less exploited than any other of similar im- 
portance. 

Senator Oaven. There has been very little exploitation by the Gov- 
ernment of the fish industry of America, has there not? 

Dr. Weber. Yes, that is true. There is one other thing I should 
like to say : 

I have had a good many of the fish people ask for Federal 
inspection — this was unsolicited on my part — but they have rather 
felt that they could reach the desired quality in their product bet- 
ter if they had Government inspection, particularly in regard to 
storage houses. The people who have been interested are people who 
would put their products into storage warehouses. 

Senator Owen. Has your department been furnished with all of 
the means you could profitably employ along this line? 

Dr. Weber. As I say, I think we could expand to a very much 
greater degree than Ave are doing now. 

Take Gloucester, for instance: There is every opportunity to do 
an enormous amount of work there; conserving the waste products, 
for instance, and even insisting on marketing the Avaste products. 
We have some products that Ave have developed from the use of fish 
which are not readily sold fresh, and in which their canning products 
are limited ; and the combination of these fish Avith a cereal makes a 
good cereal loaf. 



FISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 29 

The Gorton Pew Fish Co., which has been referred to, and with 
which we are cooperating, is getting ready to advertise and feature 
one of these products in their advertising campaign; it is a combina- 
tion of a cereal, such as hominy or barley, with whiting, making a 
loaf and canning it; and that will be put on the market this coming 
year. 

We have also given some assistance to those same people in putting 
clam extract on the market. I have several samples of that here 
which are rather tasty. That is, by the use of vacuum drying or 
dehydration, extracting a great part of the water out of the clam 
liquor when it comes from the steamer and evaporating it down to a 
paste> and then, by the addition of a small amount of that water, 
bringing it back. 

Senator Owen. Then, in your judgment, there is a large field for 
the development of food products, both for our markets and for 
export abroad? 

Dr. Weber. Oh, yes. If this dehydration of fish proves satis- 
factory and we can develop even a few products from certain varie- 
ties of fish, I think there will be a wonderful use for such a thing 
as that. It goes without saying that there will be advantages in 
shipping; in fact, in many ways there will be an advantage in the use 
of that product. 

Senator Owen. I do not think Members of Congress have had much 
opportunity of knowing what the opportunities are in the develop- 
ment of values for food from fish. So many men live in the interior 
and never come in contact with the question, and there is no par- 
ticular reason why they should have their attention called to it. 

Dr. Alsberg. Senator, I have always felt that if only small sums 
had been spent for the last 10 or 12 years for the development of the 
fish industry, or this packing industry, it would have been of immense 
benefit. Of course, the question arises — it is only fair to say that — 
whether that development should be through the Department of 
Agriculture or through the Bureau of Fisheries. I think we are all 
agreed that an experimental cannery and laboratory should be started 
both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts under some one's control. 

Senator Owen. I do not think that is of great importance. They 
seem to have been working happily together, so far as they have gone. 

Dr. Alsberg. Very much so. 

Dr. Weber. I want to say that our work there in these matters has 
been in direct cooperation with the Bureau of Fisheries. 

Senator Owen. Then it comes right back to Congress to develop 
this matter adequately, in order to meet the increasing demands of the 
American people for food, and also to utilize the values which our 
fisheries really have if they are properly developed. We have had 
an enormous output of products in the United States through agri- 
culture and through our factories, and partly from our fisheries, but 
I am quite sure nothing like the way the fisheries could be developed 
if it were given orderly attention. 

Dr. Weber. That is absolutely correct. 

Dr. Clark. I will submit a list of publications by the Department 
of Agriculture relating to the subject. (The list referred to was 



30 EISH INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

subsequently submitted by Dr. Clark and is here printed in full, as 
follows:) 

List of bulletins and publications of the Bureau of Chemistry relating to fish 

and submitted herewith. 

1. "Shrimp: Handling, Transportation, and Uses," by E. D. Clark and Leslie 

MacNaughton. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 538. 

2. "A Chemical Study of Food Fishes — The Analysis of Twenty Common Food 

Fishes with Especial Reference to a Seasonal Variation In Composition," 
by E. D. Clark and L. H. Almy. Published in Journal of Biological 
Chemistry, Volume XXXIII, p. 483. 

3. " The Commercial Freezing and Storing of Fish," by E. D. Clark and L. H. 

Almy," U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 635. 

4. "Analyses of Twenty Food Fishes of the Pacific Coast," by E. D. Clark, 

E. M. Brown, and D. B. Dill. Unpublished data for a forthcoming bul- 
letin. 

5. " The Preservation of Sardines by Smoking," by E. D. Clark and H. D. Davi. 

Special bulletin to the fish trade. 

6. " The Preparation of Kippered Shad," by E. D. Clark and H. D. Davi. Spe- 

cial bulletin to the fish trade. 

7. " Kippering Barracuda, with Especial Reference to Canning," by E. D. Clark 

and H. D. Davi. Special bulletin to the fish trade. 

8. " Supplementing Our Meat Supply with Fish," by M. E. Pennington, U. S. 

Department of Agriculture Year Book for 1913, p. 191. 

9. " Shipping Fish Three Thousand Miles to Market," by E. D. Clark, U. S. 

Department of Agriculture Year Book for 1915, p. 155. 

( Samples of fish and fish products were thereupon exhibited to the 
members of the subcommittee and the other Senators present. ) 
(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the subcommittees adjourned.) 

o 



Makers 
yracuse, M. V. 

MT. MX. 21. I9M 



